


Plan C-and-three-quarters

by josephina_x



Series: AU 'Verse of Nicnac's The Friendship Plan [1]
Category: Smallville, Smallville Season 11 (Comics)
Genre: (but AU to her story), Alternate Universe - Crack, Gen, a Nicnac bounce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:45:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evil wizard -- check! ...Volcano for sale?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plan C-and-three-quarters

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Plan B](https://archiveofourown.org/works/489837) by [Nicnac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicnac/pseuds/Nicnac). 



> Builds off of Nicnac's [Plan B](http://archiveofourown.org/works/489837) (Nicnac -- if this isn't ok, tell me and I'll take it down.) I don't know if she's planning on adding more to hers, so this is probably AU to her fic ^_^;;

~*~*~*~*~*~

Evil wizard -- check!

...Really, like that was a hard one -- they had one on-call in the Justice League contact list.

Lex firmly maintained that Zatanna was the best evil wizard out there, because (a) everybody thought she was a 'good magician', and (b) she did what she wanted and nobody ever tossed down with her for it. I mean, this was a no-brainer -- of _course_ the best villains out there walked around with everybody thinking they weren't bad, this was Villain 101! For a prime example, one only had to look at Wall Street.

...Well, actually, on second thought he was pretty sure that the Wall Street folks were _pure_ evil, not just villainous evil (yes, there was a difference). They had decided on what to do and then forced legalization of it so they could do it without consequence. ...Plus, they'd pulled every trick in the book to try and keep him from his assets when he'd first reappeared as not dead. Pure. Unadulterated. Evil.

The other tick on the 'evil' side for Zatanna was that she was perfectly willing to spell up a Ring of Doom for him when he'd called her up and asked her. He hadn't even had to explain what he'd wanted it _for_ \-- she'd just said, "Sure, sounds like fun!" and they'd gotten right down to haggling price, characcteristics,and delivery date -- no questions asked.

He'd almost been a little disappointed. He'd spent all that effort trying to think up a good cover story and planned out a little 'you owe me a favor' speech and everything for nothing.

...Well, he supposed he could maybe shelve it for later use on another future somewhat-diabolical scheme. Those never really went out of style.

Hmmm, now to find a volcano for sale.

Lex thought about that one for all of two seconds.

And then he laughed.

Because, really, who sold people volcanos? Volcanos made themselves! --And then countries claimed them as soon as they looked like the islands were going to peek out of the water. Really, that bit kind of sucked. Not that he was thinking about creating any country-sized bulwarks of land out in the middle of the ocean and then annexing them, or anything. After all, Lex might be supervillain material, but even he had limits. Flooding half the planet to get himself more land than he could use would be pushing it, and he had to admit that having to fight off every superhero on the planet _and_ the nuclear arsenals of every other country on the planet shortly thereafter, just for a bit of above-the-seabed dirt? Was just a bit much.

Plus, a lot of people would end up dead. That wasn't very neighborly.

And Clark would frown and fold his arms and float like he usually did and make Lex feel like crap. Which would also suck.

Yes, overall that was probably not a very friend-making sort of plan, right there.

...Now, forcibly using that tech based on Red Volcano's specs, which he'd copied the plans for from the Justice League databanks the other day (really, hadn't they heard of operational security? Leave the good stuff disconnected from the internet if you don't want people hacking in, folks! Lex was almost ashamed to know them) to force-erupt a volcano on the sea floor thirty miles out from the California coast in international waters, and create his own 'small' island to 'find' -- now _that_ was a plan. No major flooding, no casualties (well, maybe some sea life, but who cared about that?), no pesky land-seizure issues because he had an in or two with the California legislature (what was a little friendly blackmail between colleagues, really?) -- honestly, what could possibly go wrong?

Lex got his labs working on the prototype with one call, and spent the rest of his afternoon thinking about the design of realistic Middle Earth garb that was not red, or blue, or yellow. (Purple was acceptable, though.)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Apparently, purple was not acceptable for anything but royalty in Middle Earth, so no hobbit-purple-wear for him. Boo.

After all, Mercy looked up to him, and if he couldn't respect fictional customs in a mock recreation of a scene about legendary friendship from a book-cum-movie-franchise, well, then what was the point of anything?

Also, on a mostly-unrelated note -- apparently some people actually cared about sea life, too.

Lex folded his arms and frowned down at 'Aquaman' and his Mera-girl, on the principle that if it worked for Superman, it ought to work for him, too.

The volcano still erupting ash and molten lava in the background behind him, with him standing on the edge of the cooling volcanic rock right at the juncture where the water was lapping up at the hissing boundary, probably set a nice tone for the scene.

The garish bright orange volcano suit he was wearing to be able to be doing so, not so much.

Which really pissed him off, because he was matching the damn fish-Hero's color scheme. Because, so help him god, if he _had_ to be matching _somebody else's_ color scheme, it was going to be his archnemesis, goddamit. If he'd thought that 'Aquaman' would be making an appearance, he'd've gone with the usual silver-colored asbestos suit, rather than trying to spiffy it up like those ones in the new Star Trek movie. (In retrospect, he may have been letting Mercy have undue influence, dictating what movies he ought to watch a little too often.)

He wondered if Arthur would take it badly if he demanded Arthur take off his shirt.

Or Mera. He eyed her. If there was going to be a misunderstanding, it would probably be there. He'd heard on good authority that Atlanteans stuck trident forks in people who got 'all up in their territory', and Mera was nothing if not a jealous bitch.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Luthor!" Arthur demanded from the edge of the ocean water that _wasn't_ steaming, bobbing up and down.

Mera floated there and fingered her trident, looking menacing for a fish girl. (Which was pretty menacing, Lex had to admit. He might need further lessons in menacing. He made a mental note to ask Mercy about scheduling some for him later. --After all, he might want to be friends with Clark again, but that didn't mean he shouldn't be himself! He was pretty sure that 'being himself' was one of the requirements for friendship, after all, right up there with not using the _green_ rock on his friends. He was a smart, capable adult. He could multi-task.)

Lex stared down at Arthur as he watched the sea king bob there and rant, and reminded himself that Arthur was supposedly one of Clark's friends, and Clark wouldn't appreciate Lex fish-frying people for ranting at him, anyway. He and Mercy had had a talk about this.

When Arthur ran out of steam -- Lex wouldn't! hah! ...oh, second mental note: set up steam-powered generators as the main electrical power system for the island once the 'friendship' thing was over -- Lex answered the original question: "I'm making myself a volcano to 'find'."

Arthur stared at him like he was out of his mind, which was highly unfair because _he_ wasn't the one running around in orange all-day like it was going out of style; these were just special circumstances only for the afternoon.

"Why the hell do you need a volcano?!" Arthur asked.

So Lex proceeded to tell him.

Interestingly, they didn't interrupt him once (unlike _some_ people he could mention).

When he was done, Arthur and Mera were silent for awhile, then shared a look.

"Have you maybe thought of just asking Clark over to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy with you, instead of having to re-enact it?" Arthur asked. "That's a thing friends do, and it doesn't involve killing sea life, even."

"Well, it does if you eat popcorn shrimp--" Lex shut up at the look Arthur gave him and actually took the thought seriously.

They even waited while he thought and everything. It was a nice change of pace.

It occurred to Lex that he probably ought to extend some common courtesy as well.

So he radioed Mercy and said, "Mercy? Can we shut off the volcano-maker for awhile without anything going amuck?"

There was a pause as Mercy presumably had a quick discussion with the scientists she was overseeing over by the device. "Sure, boss," Mercy told him over the crackling line.

"Shut it off for the moment, will you?"

She did.

The volcanic activity dropped off significantly.

...And it was much quieter and more conductive to thought as well. Wonderful!

Lex took his time thinking over what Arthur had said.

He finally asked, suspiciously, "You're not just saying this because of the sea life, are you?"

"If we were, we'd be going after you for your popcorn shrimp," Mera pointed out.

"Hm," said Lex.

He thought a bit more.

"...Do you really think that having a movie night is a sufficiently epic activity for a legendary friendship?" Lex asked.

"Of course!" said Mera, puffing out her chest a bit in pride. "Arthur and I do it all the time, and _we're_ a legendary marriage!"

"Hmmmm," said Lex, looking at Arthur. Arthur looked away and blushed a little.

Lex got a sneaking suspicion, but not being an evil, evil man, he didn't voice it.

...Unless not voicing it meant a bigger blow-up later, but then, Lex knew better than to place himself in the middle of a domestic dispute, let alone do that after creating one in the first damn place. Those were messy.

"Well, it might work for marriages," Lex said slowly, with a glance at Arthur, "but I've had movie nights with Clark before we stopped being friends and, well, it didn't stop us from not being friends anymore."

"Now you'rejust being stupid," Mera said, giving him a look. "There's a big difference between the stuff you do _with_ your friends, and the stuff that you're friends _about_."

"There is?" Lex said, feeling a little shocked.

Mera nodded and grinned at him with all her teeth. (It was a very impressive 'smile'.)

"But you and Arthur blow up oil rigs and things, and that has _everything_ to do with why you two are together. You're both all about the eco-terrorism," Lex pointed out.

"Don't be stupid, Luthor -- we don't blow up oil rigs!" Mera said, sounding shocked.

"I think he's talking about the VRA-thing, Mera," Arthur put in.

"Oh, _those _," she said, rolling her eyes. "Those weren't _active_ oil rigs! Those were repurposed holding cells," she explained. "If we blew up an active oil rig, it'd catch fire and spew oil everywhere and pollute the ocean for hundreds of miles around. We're not _stupid___ ," she said huffily.

"Good to know," Lex said weakly. He bit his lip and rethought a few things.

"...I'm still keeping the island," he said, not going to let that one go, because dammnit, it _was_ his, in every way, shape, and form.

"Fine, but you're helping with the aquatic cleanup," Arthur said, just as uncompromisingly.

"Fine, I'll send a crew over," Lex said, rolling his eyes.

"And no making it any bigger," Mera added.

Lex opened his mouth to protest.

"On purpose," she added.

Lex thought for a second, then opened his mouth to protest again--

"Unless it's going to explode or something if you don't vent the volcanic gas. Just -- Posideon's tits! -- just call the League and get ahold of us before you decide anything, all right? We're better than any damn land-locked ecologists or oceanographists --we live here! -- and we have to live here, too."

"Technically, it's _our_ land you just annexed here, Luthor," Arthur added, and Lex realized he'd meant that the sea floor was the property of Arthur and Mera, the domain of Atlantis.

Damn countries laying claim to even the ocean floor. What did Lex have to do for a little space without having to ask anybody and no never-mind, build himself a moon base like Oliver-fucking-Queen?!

Lex sighed, made 'nice', and decided that a paltry movie night as a Plan D was better than nothing.

As he walked away in his big orange suit, he sighed and radioed Mercy. Maybe she'd have another idea for a more epic Plan E, that might not involve any more Heroes sticking their noses into his personal business.

Well, except the one Hero that mattered.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
